Author of Acclaimed Book Eyes Off the Prize: The UN and the African American Struggle for Human Rights Speaks at Penn State-Dickinson

Carlisle, PA (October 28, 2005) — Carol Anderson, author of the award-winning book Eyes Off the Prize: The UN and the African American Struggle for Human Rights that explores the civil rights movement for black equality in the U.S., spoke today at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

In her lecture “Depraved and Different”, Anderson described how attempts to eradicate racism in the U.S. have not been successful because of the narrow focus on civil rights compared to a more inclusive approach by focusing on human rights.

Eyes Off the Prize was included in the list of “essential books on the modern African American battle for full citizenship” compiled by Clayborne Carson, director of the King Papers Project. In addition to the acclaimed Eyes Off the Prize, Anderson has published several other books on the African American struggle for human rights and has a forthcoming book titled Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960. Anderson signed copies of Eyes Off the Prize following today’s presentation.

Anderson is an associate professor of history at the University of Missouri-Columbia who teaches in the areas of U.S. and foreign policy, African American history, and American human rights policy. She focuses her research on how domestic and international policies intersect with race, justice and equality issues.

Anderson received her A.B. and M.A. from Miami University and her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. She is a Fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History for the 2005-2006 academic year.

The presentation was sponsored by the Black Law Students Association and co-sponsored by the Women’s Law Caucus and Minority Law Students Association.